John Ball: In the Heat of the Night

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (UK 2016)

From the Publisher:
A 50th anniversary edition of the classic crime novel that inspired the Oscar-winning film starring Sidney Poitier.

'They call me Mr Tibbs!'

A small southern town in the 1960s. A musician found dead on the highway. It's no surprise when white detectives arrest a black man for the murder. What is a surprise is that the black man - Virgil Tibbs - is himself a skilled homicide detective from California, whom inexperienced Chief Gillespie reluctantly recruits to help with the case. Faced with mounting local hostility and a police force that seems determined to see him fail, it isn't long before Tibbs - trained in karate and aikido - will have to fight not just for justice, but also for his own safety.

The inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film starring Sidney Poitier, this iconic crime novel is a psychologically astute examination of racial prejudice, an atmospheric depiction of the American South in the sixties, and a brilliant, suspense-filled read set in the sultry heat of the night.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night. Penguin Modern Classics, ISBN: 9780241238622 (May, 2016), 176 p., £8.99.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (USA 2010)

From the Publisher:
John Ball's 1965 mystery In the Heat of the Night tells the story of a black police officer named Virgil Tibbs who happens to be passing through a southern town at a particularly inauspicious moment. An orchestra conductor has been brutally murdered and the local police, without much in the way of real evidence, arrest Tibbs. On discovering that Tibbs is not the real killer but rather a highly-skilled homicide detective, the local police enlist Tibbs to help solve the case.

Several factors made (and make) this novel so very relevant and timely. For one, the hero is a black police officer, which at the time the book was written was not a very common figure in popular culture. Tibbs's investigation leads him through the backwater town and exposes him to different forms of prejudice harbored by the townspeople. His urban sophistication and his California background also rankle the townspeople. A major accomplishment with this novel is that author John Ball refuses to discredit one stereotype by merely adopting another. He deftly manages to write a novel about prejudice and stereotype set in a region of the country where ignorance and racism cause terrible suffering, but avoids making the mistake of depicting every Southerner as ignorant or racist. Just as the portrait here of Virgil Tibb's topples some peoples' notions, portraits of some Southerners in this novel do the same.

In the Heat of the Night stands as a classic pop culture document. It is also winner of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America as well as the Crimewriters' Association's Golden Dagger Award, and it was named one of the hundred greatest detective novels of the century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. The book's main character, Virgil Tibbs, also appears in The Cool Cottontail and Johnny Get Your Gun as part of the Virgil Tibbs mystery series.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night. Rosetta Books, ISBN: 9780795319402 (July, 2010), eBook, 0.20 MB (ca. 192 p.), $12.00.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
It's the 1960s. A hot August night lies heavy over the Carolinas. The corpse - legs sprawled, stomach down on the concrete pavement, arms above the head - brings the patrol car to a halt. The local police pick up a black stranger named Virgil Tibbs, only to discover that their most likely suspect is a homicide detective from California - and the racially tense community's single hope in solving a brutal murder that turns up no witnesses, no motives, no clues.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night. Carroll & Graf; ISBN: 0786708832 (June, 2001), 185 p., $12.00.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (UK 1978)

From the Publisher:
It's a hot, sticky summer's night in a small town in America's Deep South. A corpse is heaped in the gutter. There are no witnesses, no clues, no motives for murder only the stifling heat.

Virgil Tibbs, visiting homicide expert, is pulled in to investigate the killing. But Virgil is black. Neither the bigoted inhabitants nor the local police force want a black man telling them what to do. In danger of his life, Virgil must overcome their resentment before he can show how a brutal and apparently senseless murder was committed.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is the basis of an outstanding film starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night. A Virgil Tibbs Story. London: Hamlyn Paperbacks, 1978, ISBN: 0600349071, 186 p., 85p.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (USA 1967 / 7th printing)

From the Publisher:
RECIPE FOR TROUBLE
A Southern town seething with suspicion and hate. The dead body of a brutally stain man. The very live body of a teenage temptress. And a visiting defective suddenly put in charge of the case -- a detective who happens to be a Negro In a taut, savagely paced tale of murder and mystery introducing Virgil Tibbs...

"A remarkable individual who may well end up in the great detective category." The New York Times

Now an explosive motion picture triumph starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night. Introducing Virgil Tibbs, a cool negro detective in a white hot world of murder. New York: Bantam Books, 1967, Bantam Mystery F3355, 7th printing - no date given, 152 p., ¢50.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (UK 1967)

From the Publisher:
A tantalizing mystery introducing a splendid new Negro detective, the generous, unassuming, and intelligent VIRGIL TIBBS
Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Award for the best crime novel by a non-British author during 1966 The Mystery Writers of America's 'Edgar' for the best first mystery of 1966

'Has a fizz and freshness that make most crime stories look dull... this is a genuine classical puzzle with logical deductions drawn by Virgil Tibbs from the clues... the best first crime story I have read for months' -- JULIAN SYMONS, SUNDAY TIMES

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night. London: Pan Books, 1967, Pan X711, 158 p., 3'6.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (USA 1967)

"A remarkable individual who may well end up in the great detective category." The New York Times

Now an explosive motion picture triumph starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night. Introducing Virgil Tibbs, a cool negro detective in a white hot world of murder. New York: Bantam Books, 1967, Bantam Mystery F3355, 152 p., ¢50.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (USA 1965)

From the Publisher:
The eleven thousand inhabitants of the town of Wells slept fitfully in the heat of a Carolina August night. Sam Wood, policeman, one of the few people fully awake, sweated as he drove on his rounds in the quiet town, stopped at an all-night counter for a Coke, drove on, and found a man's body on the highway -- the corpse of Mantoli, the conductor who was to head the town's first music festival. Wood was a conscientious man, but little educated, and his police training and experience were not up to coping with sudden death. He phoned his superior, Bill Gillespie.

"It looks like murder," said Wood.
"Sam, take your car, check the railroad station and the north end of town to see if anyone is crazy enough to try to hitchhike out of here," Gillespie ordered. Wood checked the seemingly deserted station, and in the colored waiting room he found a young Negro, sitting there reading a book -- but with a wallet packed with money. Instantly suspicious, Wood drove the suspect to the local police station. A murder and a strange Negro in town, with a very full wallet. And the man claimed he'd earned the money -- who ever had heard of a colored earning that much?

"Where do you work?" the police chief asked in a voice that suggested the case was solved and he was ready to go home and back to bed.

"In Pasadena, California," the Negro said.
The chief grinned. Two thousand miles was a long way. Far enough to make a man think that a checkup wouldn't be made. The chief leaned forward. "And what do you do in Pasadena, California, that makes you money like that?"

The suspect said, "I'm a police officer." And so he was: Virgil Tibbs, homicide expert, the Wells police discovered when they wired Pasadena. And Pasadena suggested that the Wells police might like to avail themselves of Tibbs's expert help. Wells was very fortunate that he was on hand, wired Pasadena.

In a bigoted little Southern town a Negro police officer practically in charge of a case, questioning the townspeople -it seemed an impossible situation! Chief Gillespie didn't like it, not one bit.

But there had been a murder, and there bad to be a murderer caught-somehow. John Ball has written a tantalizing mystery, introducing an attractive new detective, Virgil Tibbs.

John Ball: In the Heat of the Night. A Harper Novel of Suspense. New York: Harper & Row, 1965, 184 p., $3.50.